Pound foolish?

No more national norming in FCAT

On one hand, a decision by state education policymakers to discard the norm-referenced test (NRT) component of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test seems to make sense. It will save Florida taxpayers an estimated $12 million next year alone, and in the face of sharply reduced state revenues and a property-tax initiative that is squeezing school districts around the Sunshine State, $12 million isn't chump change.

But our concern, and that of some educators, is that saving $12 million by eliminating the part of the FCAT that enabled Florida to compare its performance to that of other states may be penny wise but pound foolish.

Commissioner of Education Eric J. Smith suggested dropping the NRT "to maintain as much funding in the classroom as possible," Kelsey Lehtomaa, deputy press secretary for the Department of Education, said last week. Since the federal No Child Left Behind Act doesn't require the NRT, she said, its removal doesn't jeopardize federal funding.

School districts could decide to administer the NRT component anyway, but they'd have to pick up the cost. Given the statewide financial crisis, however, that's improbable.

Leon County, for example, faces an $18 million school budget cut. Smaller Big Bend districts are grappling with their own financial headaches. So paying to give part of a test that isn't widely beloved to begin with isn't likely.

We have had our own problems with the high-stakes nature of the FCAT, particularly how it's used to financially reward schools that do well, which conversely punishes schools that need the most help. While imperfect, the FCAT is an important diagnostic tool.

Until now, the test — given to students in grades 3 through 11 — has consisted of two portions. The criterion-referenced test (CRT) measures selected benchmarks in math, reading, science and writing. It's tied to Sunshine State Standards and gives Florida districts and schools the ability to measure their benchmark progress against each other.

The NRT component measures individual student performance in reading and math against national norms. The value of national norming is it enables a state like ours, which in past years has consistently been at the bottom in many national education rankings, to compare progress not only against ourselves, but also other school systems throughout the United States.

Even that comparison, some say, is of limited use since, in a global economy, states are no longer competing against each other so much as other nations.

But national norming at least provides some useful data — certainly more than none at all. While the DOE says it will now use the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to gauge student performance across states, local officials say it's not a comparable replacement for the NRT.

The NAEP, while valuable for targeted comparisons, is given only to selected groups of students in selected schools, said Paul Felsch, Leon County's director of student assessment. It's not remotely comprehensive, and final results are tabulated on a per-state basis only.

Mr. Felsch and Superintendent of Schools Jackie Pons say they're still trying to determine all the implications of the decision to drop the NRT. But so far their doubt far outweighs their delight.

In an Op-Ed commentary published earlier this month, Mr. Smith, the DOE commissioner, wrote about the need for "the next generation" of education reform, a concept we heartily endorse. We're far less certain, however, that this is a step in the right direction.

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Pound foolish?

On one hand, a decision by state education policymakers to discard the norm-referenced test (NRT) component of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test seems to make sense. It will save Florida